Kinglake Friends of the Forest responds to Timber Act lawfare loophole must be closed: Forest and Wood Communities Australia and also to questions from ARR.News.
This story relates to the ARR.News Ongoing Debate: Bushfires, Logging, Burns and Forest Management
The adorable Greater Glider is in trouble.
It is threatened by fire and logging and its population has crashed by over 80% this century.
The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Scientific Advisory Committee found that “the Greater Glider is in a demonstrable state of decline likely to lead to extinction …and the threats are operating and expected to continue to operate in the future at a level likely to lead to extinction.”
But no-one expected the threats to get so much worse so quickly. The devastating Black Summer fires of 2019/20 drove Australia’s biggest flying mammal even closer to the brink.
Now VicForests – a logging company owned by the government – wants to clear much of what’s left of the Greater Glider’s habitat. These animals’ highly toxic diet of nothing but eucalypt leaves does not provide enough energy for them to find a new home when the machines come. They perish either during or soon after logging operations.
Already listed as “vulnerable”, this species is expected to be declared “endangered” later this year.
Kinglake Friends of the Forest is a local community group fighting to save the Greater Gliders and their beautiful home. Alongside Environment East Gippsland, we’re challenging VicForests in the Supreme Court over what we believe is its failure to protect these unique creatures.
Our case relies partly on the Precautionary Principle, a clause in the Code of Practice for Timber Production that allows courts to consider the risk of “serious or irreversible environmental damage”. This is a key clause in Australian environment laws and is included in many international agreements. This clause reflects the fact that we can only prevent disaster before it happens.
The court case has led to a temporary injunction which stops logging in any area of forest in the Central Highlands known to have Greater Gliders.
This ruling won’t affect the overwhelming majority of the forestry industry given that ninety percent of the wood harvested in Victoria already comes from timber plantations.
There’s also nothing in the injunction to stop VicForests from logging where there are no Greater Gliders. But unfortunately, the Gliders’ habitat – older damp forest with big trees – is precisely what VicForests is after.
So how can a grassroots community group take the state logging agency to court? Goliath has a lot of ways to stop potential Davids taking him on. But in early 2021, in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Justice Richards said that we have legal “standing” in regard to forest preservation, stating:
“I am satisfied on the totality of the evidence that Kinglake Friends of the Forest has a special interest in the preservation of the native forests of Kinglake and the Central Highlands, beyond a mere intellectual or emotional concern, and that its interest is greater than that of the general public.”
Challenging VicForests over alleged illegal logging takes an enormous amount of work, pressure and expense. We’re volunteers who have nothing to gain financially. So why on earth do we do it?
The answer is that we love the forests and the wildlife that depends on them. We want to see our communities’ natural treasures preserved so all Victorians can enjoy them for generations to come.
South-east Australia is also blessed with some of the most carbon-dense forests in the world, making them a vital part of our battle against climate change. Chapter 9 of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change report highlights the crucial importance for a stable and safe climate of “maintaining or increasing the forest area through reduction of deforestation and degradation”.
As we’ve all tragically seen, a warming climate means more catastrophic bushfires.
Logging increases fire intensity and probability. This is borne out by decades of studies by internationally respected scientists. Mature forests with their wet understorey slow and even stop the inferno’ spread. So, when the bushfires come, our native forests don’t just provide refuge for wildlife; they can also keep us safer.
Saving these forests is also vital for our communities’ economic future.
VicForests only directly employs 500 odd people, including contractors, in native forest logging. But although they’re only a relatively small number, these workers deserve more sustainable jobs that won’t disappear when the trees run out.
Victoria needs their wide range of skills to protect and manage our native forests for tourism, carbon storage, and the state’s supply of drinking water. Their expertise with heavy machinery and fallen trees would also be invaluable in the fight against ever-more-frequent bushfires.
The Victorian government’s $200 million industry transition package includes redundancy payments for workers of up to up to $120,000.
But while businesses can apply for an opt-out package from 2022, they won’t get the funds until at least 2023.
The government should make this money immediately available to workers rather than stringing them along for another year.
Native forest logging is a failing industry that doesn’t make economic sense.
According to economist John Lawrence, last financial year “VicForests’ operations fell well short of being financially sustainable. It’s been that way for the past five years at least. Forest revenue from the sale of publicly-owned trees has been insufficient to cover costs.
“Native forests, which comprise the majority of VicForests’ net assets, have been provided free by the Crown. No dividend has been paid in the last five years.
“The 2020/21 cash loss of $30.5 million was funded by $21 million of government assistance and a $10 million run down in VicForests’ bank account.”
That means VicForests is using our tax dollars to destroy our irreplaceable natural resources – at a loss.
It’s time to put an end to native forest logging and create a better future for Central Highlands communities and all of Victoria – a future that still has the Greater Glider in it.
References provided by Kinglake Friends of the Forest are below.
Related story: Timber Act lawfare loophole must be closed: Forest and Wood Communities Australia
Questions from ARR.News
ARR.News: Do you agree/ believe that skilled foresters and sustainable forestry plays an important role in having forests in their optimum condition, which in turn makes them best able to support a balanced biodiversity?
KFF: We believe that skilled foresters have an important role to play in repairing the damage that has been done to forests. Since European colonization 66% of the state’s native vegetation has been cleared and 50% of the ash forest in Victoria is under 20 years old and of limited use to native animals. The original forest cover has become fragmented and damaged, allowing access for feral animals and weeds.
A skilled and well-resourced workforce could do a great deal to tackle this problem with positive outcomes for biodiversity.
“Forestry” in the sense of “logging” has no place in our native forests. Only plantations can be called “sustainable forestry”.
ARR.News: Have you ever, or would you, discuss with skilled foresters how to find the right balance of native forest harvesting and management to allow for suitable habitat for the gliders and other threatened species?
KFF: The tipping point in the balance between maintaining mature forest and using it as a resource has already been passed. If you continue every year to take away a percentage of any finite thing you will eventually be left, not with nothing, but with a vanishingly tiny amount. Not forgetting that you can’t replace mature forest and that Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world.
The young forest that grows after logging is thirstier, so the water in our reservoirs and rivers is reduced by logging. In young forest regrowing after logging, fires burn with higher intensity, there is less carbon stored, less habitat for hollow-dependent wildlife and less tourism potential.
The other side of the coin is that wood from native forest logging is used mainly to supply a paper mill which can easily be supplied by plantation wood.
Forest harvesters have the skills required to do the ever-increasing workload of suppressing bushfires. More, rather than fewer, haulage contractors would be required to transport plantation wood to the Maryvale Mill and while we’re funding the industry workers and businesses, it should also be to assist with bushfire suppression near communities.
Regarding discussion with foresters, the current court case over logging Greater Glider habitat allows the courts to weigh up expert opinion on whether current logging practices are causing serious or irreversible damage to that species. Kinglake Friends of the Forest have supplied their expert opinion on the matter and await the expert opinion to be supplied by VicForests.
ARR.News: Do you agree/ believe that leaving forests completely untouched significantly increases bushfire risk (harmful to wildlife) and that more controlled mild burning (eg cultural burning) is needed to reduce bushfire risk and have forests in their optimum condition?
KFF: The question of controlled burns is a complex subject and needs more discussion. However, as an aside, it is debatable whether the sort of burning practised by the Traditional Owners was carried out in forested areas. As always, any policy should be evidence-based and should “first do no harm”.
As regards logging, the intensity of fires was found to be higher in forests that had been logged 7 – 35 years prior to the 2009 fires. The study covered just under 10,000 sites over the area burnt in 2009.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12122
The study confirms what seems logical; logging leaves debris (up to 450 tonnes per hectare) which increases the fuel load. We have all seen the areas of regrowth after logging which is dominated by dense areas of young, similar-aged trees, and fewer wet elements like tree ferns. The area is exposed to wind and sun and is further dried out by the thirsty young trees. The connection between the ground and canopy adds to the risk of dangerous canopy fires.
ARR: Finally, what is your response to Forestry Australia’s call for a shared vision for Australia’s forests and Forestry Australia’s call for new approaches to address Victoria’s escalating forest wars?
KFF: See above re ‘balance’.
References
More than 50% ash under 20 years
http://rubiconforest.org/sites/default/files/624_RFPGSubmission2MER_29August_2021.pdf
450 tonnes per hectare residual
P124 National Carbon Accounting system Forest Management in Australia: Implications for Carbon Budgets Edited by R.J. Raison and R.O. Squire Part 1 https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/pub?pid=procite:9b1bf1b6-00af-44f7-b108-b68bba21289e
References for A Greater Future with Gliders
Threatened status
https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/440371/267-Greater-Glider-2019-Action-Statement.pdf See page 5 Conservation Status
Population decline
https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/pubs/254-conservation-advice-20160525.pdf page 5
Also Greater Glider Action Statement (above) refers to 8.8% annual decline
Fate of gliders when home range logged
https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/55647/Greater-Glider-final-recommendation.pdf
Jobs
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqL948E7FrJihmHvLwUvYoieZgr6
Table 1 page 4
Finances
https://1drv.ms/w/s!AqL948E7FrJihl-V7xRxe6JgaVfP?e=pw75tI
Transition packages
https://djpr.vic.gov.au/forestry/forestry-plan
Logging and bushfire severity
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353827150_Empirical_analyses_of_the_factors_inf luencing_fire_severity_in_southeastern_Australia
Forests and carbon – IPCC report
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg3-chapter9-1.pdf page 549
Plantation timber
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/sustainability/end-of-native-forest-logging/ https://www.delwp.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0035/417896/14-Timber-factsheet-FINAL.pdf
Carbon dense forests
https://www.pnas.org/content/106/28/11635
Australia’s mammal extinction rate
https://taronga.org.au/news/2018-07-11/fighting-worst-mammal-extinction-rate-world https://www.britannica.com/science/conservation-ecology/Recent-extinction-rates
